In this special episode, NACUBO’s vice president, policy and research, Liz Clark, chats with senior director, government affairs, Megan Schneider, and director, student financial services and educational programs, Bryan Dickson about the latest from Washington and beyond. Get to know the team better in a conversation that ranges from legislation and policies impacting higher education to the latest and greatest Netflix recommendations.   Links & Notes— ·         Connect with Liz on LinkedIn ·         Connect with Megan on LinkedIn ·         Connect with Bryan on LinkedIn ·         Inching Toward Infrastructure: The View from NACUBO

NACUBO In Brief

Get to Know the NACUBO In Brief Team and the Issues They are Following

 The Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and advocacy organization committed to promoting access and success in higher education. In this episode, NACUBO’s vice president, policy and research, Liz Clark speaks with the Interim President of IHEP, Mamie Voight, about her organization’s efforts to use data and evidence to create equitable and innovative degree pathways to help students and institutions. Among IHEP’s advocacy priorities is the College Completion Fund, a potentially transformational investment in evidence-based strategies to help students earn their degree.   Links & Notes IHEP Degrees When Due Case Study: Shasta College IHEP Developing a Data-Informed Campus Culture report IHEP Degree Mining Tool College Completion Fund briefing playlist 

IHEP’s Data-Informed Efforts to Help Students Complete and Succeed

The University of Arizona received NACUBO’s 2021 Excellence in Sustainability Award for its Compost Cats program. In this episode, NACUBO’s senior director of government affairs, Megan Schneider, is joined by Dr. Ilse Rojas, Compost Cats program manager, and Trevor Ledbetter, director of the Office of Sustainability at University of Arizona. Together, they discuss the award-winning program, which has grown from an on-campus composting initiative, to a hub of sustainability education and action for the Tucson community.   Links & Notes NACUBO Excellence in Sustainability Award Recipients Connect with Ilse on LinkedIn Connect with Trevor on LinkedIn 

Winner of the 2021 Excellence in Sustainability Award: How Compost Cats Flourished at the University of Arizona

Heather E. McGowan, future-of-work strategist and author of The Adaptation Advantage, joins NACUBO’s senior director of government affairs Megan Schneider to discuss how to lead in a post-pandemic world. Their conversation ranges from entering the era of human capital and what that means for students preparing for the workforce, to ways you can marry your passions with market needs, and finally how colleges and universities can better support their own workforce. Links & Notes Heather McGowan Bio 

How to Better Prepare Your Employees & Students for a Post-Pandemic World

Colleges and universities across the country have benefitted greatly from the COVID-19 relief aid appropriated to higher education by Congress via the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF). While much discussion of HEERF has centered on the primary portion of aid known as the (a)(1) allocations that most schools have received, there has been less discussion of how institutions that also received (a)(2) allocations, those earmarked for particular institution types, have utilized these less restricted funds. In this episode, NACUBO’s senior director of government affairs, Megan Schneider talks with Juan Castillo, vice president of finance and administration at Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) about how TAMIU has used its HEERF (a)(2) allocations in new and innovative ways to support student success and meet community needs.  Links & Notes NACUBO State of Higher Education Series Connect with Juan on LinkedIn 

Leveraging HEERF Allocations for Student Success: the Texas A&M International University Story

Tuition Discounting at private colleges and universities continued to rise in the 2020-21 academic year as institutions tried to keep pace with students’ financial needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this episode, NACUBO’s vice president for policy and research, Liz Clark talks with Jeff Weinstein, co-founder and vice president for strategic analytics at Vemo Education, about tuition discounting and how institutions should re-think aid to attract and retain a new generation of students.  Links & Notes 2020 Tuition Discounting Study Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn 

Unpacking the 2020 Tuition Discounting Study with Vemo Education’s Jeff Weinstein

As the COVID-19 pandemic brought sweeping changes to the higher education landscape, institutions have been forced to plan and forecast in a more sophisticated way. In this episode, NACUBO’s vice president for policy and research, Liz Clark talks with Derek Freitag, strategic account executive with Synario, to uncover how schools are making long-term adaptations and how Synario can help institutions strategically plan for a variety of scenarios. Links & Notes Synario 

Using Synario to Create the Financial Models You Need for Strategic Scenario Planning

NACUBO’s Bryan Dickson, director of student financial services and educational programs, and Lindsay Wayt, director of analytics, discuss the latest edition in NACUBO’s State of Higher Education series. Titled “Bold Action Required: How to More Effectively Support Students from Low-Income Backgrounds,” the effort calls on higher education professionals to take action to support students from low-income backgrounds, including using data to understand challenges, making a commitment to underrepresented students, and investing in policies and practices that facilitate systemic change.

Supporting Students From Low-Income Backgrounds

According to Vemo Education vice president and co-founder, Bill Brosseau, income share agreements help institutions to be more thoughtful, strategic, and adaptable to helping students most in need as they tackle doubts around affording their post-secondary education. Vemo’s efforts hinge on helping balance student and institutional needs to ease anxieties of college affordability for both. NACUBO’s vice president for policy and research, Liz Clark, sits down with Brosseau to talk about ISAs and how institutions can be student-focused and financially astute with a careful application of this innovative financial aid tool. Links & Notes Vemo Education Connect with Bill Brosseau on LinkedIn 

Vemo Education Stimulates Strategic Thinking about ISAs

How has the pandemic changed the value of a higher education degree and intensified our need to talk about affordability? Why are students of color and lower-income students less likely to attend certain institutions? NACUBO’s director of analytics, Lindsay Wayt, joins Liz Clark to talk about the association’s State of Higher Education Project and how it’s a call to action to help CBOs see, react to, and use data to address important topics. Additional Resources: https://www.nacubo.org/Advocacy/State-of-Higher-Education 

NACUBO’s State of Higher Education Project

How are colleges and universities responding to the pandemic? Is 2020 truly proving to be an era of transformation? Paul Friga, University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler strategy professor and the co-founder and chief strategy officer of ABC Insights, joins Liz Clark to explore how institutions are taking action and why creativity and collaboration are necessary to tackle the many challenges the higher education sector is facing.

Strategic Finance and Courageous Leadership

Emmanual Guillory, director of student and institutional aid policy for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), joins NACUBO Senior Director of Government Affairs Megan Schneider to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on fall higher education enrollment. Have we seen an enrollment decrease? “That’s a very good question… we are, unfortunately seeing a decline in enrollment,” says Guillory. But the overall landscape — which institutions and students are being impacted the most — is a story of nuance.   Guillory goes on to offer his insights on fall semester trends based on a recent NAICU enrollment study and to forecast potential enrollment trends beyond fall 2020. Links & Notes NAICU Survey of Private Nonprofit College Fall Enrollment 

NAICU’s Emmanual Guillory Reports on COVID Impact on Fall Enrollment

Justin Draeger, president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators joins NACUBO director of student financial services and educational programs Bryan Dickson to discuss the impact of Income Share Agreements on the higher education landscape. While this space isn’t yet regulated, Justin explains that schools have some flexibility to experiment with these alternatives to traditional financial aid and notes that institutions that are leading the way with these new instruments are doing so with great care.  As students look for different ways to finance their education, campus leaders, policymakers, and consumer protection groups will need to do their homework in this area now, as Justin and Bryan see ISAs becoming more commonplace. 

NASFAA President Justin Draeger Shares the Ins and Outs of Income Share Agreements

Brad Kendrex, executive vice president for administration and operations at Chandler-Gilbert Community College and interim vice president for administrative services at Mesa Community College joins NACUBO senior director, government affairs Megan Schneider to discuss the impact of COVID-19 legislative support on community colleges. The Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) of the CARES Act has offered unique challenges and implications for community colleges thanks to prioritization of full-time enrollment in determining funds received, and other factors. This isn’t a surprise, according to Kendrex, but the implications are significant.

The CARES Act Impact on Community Colleges

Private, nonprofit institutions forgo a significant portion of potential revenue to help families offset the cost of college. The 2019 study, conducted before the coronavirus pandemic, indicates that this trend is becoming even more profound. Today on the show, NACUBO Assistant Director for Research and Policy Analysis Kat Masterson joins NACUBO Vice President for Policy and Research Liz Clark to share the latest findings and new insights from the study, focusing on institutions’ use of tuition discounting to recruit and support students, and the challenges that come from increasing aid. Thank you to EAB for their generous support of this study.

NACUBO's Kat Masterson Shares Lessons Learned from the 2019 NACUBO Tuition Discounting Study

What economic trends today will set the stage for the future? How will legislative actions impact student financial aid? What accounting policy or reporting changes are on the horizon? Navigating the business of higher education institutions requires knowledge about a variety of issues—from finance to campus security. In this podcast series, hear colleagues, experts, and industry leaders explore issues, provide best practices, offer solutions to new questions that may not have been asked before, and think through how recent developments will shape their institutions in the months and years ahead.

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NACUBO In Brief

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